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It's ace! I should warn however that it came out very early in the PS2's life so it really looks like a PS1 game that was shifted to the new platform right at the last minute. Doesn't make any difference to how good it is though.

It's ace! I should warn however that it came out very early in the PS2's life so it really looks like a PS1 game that was shifted to the new platform right at the last minute. Doesn't make any difference to how good it is though.

That does look pretty cool but honestly.....does Japan have to add mecha to everything?

It's ace! I should warn however that it came out very early in the PS2's life so it really looks like a PS1 game that was shifted to the new platform right at the last minute. Doesn't make any difference to how good it is though.

That does look pretty cool but honestly.....does Japan have to add mecha to everything?

I think what's needed is a WW2 RPG, where you play as a soldier for a country, say England. You can select your birth date, and thus can also select/have selected your join date. You could go through boot camp, then join whatever unit you were able to join according to your abilities (armor, infantry, airborne). For simplicity, it would probably be better to restrict people to ground forces.

Then you'd go through the war, fighting in a dynamic world inside of historical events which you will have very little power to change.

I also would love to see world peace and cheap, good beer. I expect both of those occurring before they make a game like I described.

Also; WWIIOL is not the game I described. I'm looking for something that combines, say, Battlefield 1942 and The Elder Scrolls.

well I wouldn't say the world was on their minds, but certainly old country rivals that their country had been fighting with or been pushed around by, for centuries. after that, if you could, whats one more? then an other? and an other?

(dont expect a reply, just wanted to get that out there)

So it is your contention that Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Belgium (among others) were pushing Germany around?

It's ace! I should warn however that it came out very early in the PS2's life so it really looks like a PS1 game that was shifted to the new platform right at the last minute. Doesn't make any difference to how good it is though.

That does look pretty cool but honestly.....does Japan have to add mecha to everything?

Never mind the gameplay argument (which goes hand-in-hand with the incoming argument, anyway), historical accuracy can add a whole lot to narrative. You *are* General So-and-so, and this is where you are now. Hold a specific location for 2 days? Okay! Only, you have limited manpower, and supplies/reinforcements don't always come on time.... or at all. Meantime, you have to order your units around, putting them in situations where you might have to sacrifice a whole lot of them for the 'greater good'. When nightfall comes, do you anticipate enemy ambushes? Do you let your units rest? What about the constant artillery barrage you're eating? Do you hold at all costs? Do you retreat if it means that you could save the majority of your forces from an overwhelming enemy attack? This is what General So-and-so had to go through back then, and now you have to make the decisions that he had to make back then. This is 'immersion' at its finest.

Now I have to go re-install Combat Mission. Also Over the Reich, a fun but very niche game which is probably best described as a turn-based flight sim.

For "alternate" WW2 games Freedom Force vs the Third Reich is great (although it really has nothing to do with WW2).

I think a Pacific Theatre FPS would be better served by not playing an American. Too many of the islands would just be basically jungles and caves. It would be better to move onto the Asian mainland with the Chinese, Koreans, and Russians. There was some interesting stuff going on in Asia, including Mongolian troops who still fought on horseback and Japanese soldiers attacking tanks with swords.

I want a WWII with a really deep story, like, HL2 deep. Characters you give a fuck about. You actually feel like you're doing something. Not "rescue this guy he is an important dude for some reason," "take this bridge," etc.

Well, doing that undermines the point of the WWII FPS. The point is so people can shoot enemy guys and not feel like it's a bad thing to do - which is fine, fighting evil and all.

But the real life situation is that german soldiers weren't by and large evil, they were, sadly, bound by duty and oath to their country's decision to roll over a ton of neighbouring countries.

If you started pushing for better characterisation, it'd end up being really, really one-sided. I'm not sure I'd prefer to see that. Band of Brothers struck a good balance, though.

I'd like to see an FPS that has the sort of camraderie with one's squad mates that BoB had. But not just with one squad - over the course of the levels, I want to play as multiple soldiers on different sides and fronts. Essentially, I want to become attached to the other guys in my unit, and eventually have at least one pair of "enemy" PCs cross paths in some way. Perhaps one Roger Smith is deployed with the British Eighth Army in Africa, where Wilhelm Baum is a German army private attached to one of Rommel's tank units. After a while of switching roles back and forth, maybe Wilhelm ends up gunning down a recognizable squadmate of Roger's. Make it so the player notices this and is understandably upset when he switches back to Roger.

I think BoA was pretty good at at least making you want to keep your buddies alive. Taking this a step further would be getting closer to what I'm talking about.

well I wouldn't say the world was on their minds, but certainly old country rivals that their country had been fighting with or been pushed around by, for centuries. after that, if you could, whats one more? then an other? and an other?

(dont expect a reply, just wanted to get that out there)

So it is your contention that Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Belgium (among others) were pushing Germany around?

I think the funnest game would be an fps based on what-if's. Think about it. Its 1940, and you're a french soldier in the Ardennes. The germans begin to invade, though no one thought it possible through here. You have to hold off the germans for long enough that they can't surpass you, dig deep into your line, and fuck your shit up, like they did in real life.

If you win, you get to continue on in the campaign, maybe the next battle is in belgium, then somewhere in western germany, though at this point, you start to see some of the cooler experimental french equipment.

There could be a few campaigns like this. The germans actually attempting to land on and take over britain. The russians trying to take over eastern europe when germany is defeated. The americans trying to invade japan. This way, you would get some new battles that you havn't done a million times. It would let you create new epic fights, etc.

But hey. I'm a game creator, I know how much people hate it when you say "wouldn't X be grand?"

Well, that's what you get. Take away the things that people will recognize it as a WW2 era game, and you're left with generic anything. Replace the Panzers and Normandy with Croatia and Mammoths, and you've got a generic RTS.

What I think the genre needs is more open-ended WW2 FPSs. Less story, more running around and doing shit. Playing a game as a French resistance troop, or Russian partisan, or Volksjaeger. Something where you can do stuff pretty much independantly, though missions are available to you if you so choose.